


Dr. Chem

by aintweproudriff



Series: Superhero AU [7]
Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Davey wants to be better at his job, F/F, Fight Scenes, Healthy Relationships, M/M, Multi, davey is kinda like honey lemon from big hero six???, davey's power is so cool yall, feelings of insecurity, that's who he's based on, unhealthy exercise habits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-21 06:42:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15551925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aintweproudriff/pseuds/aintweproudriff
Summary: “Davey’s responsible for the powers of about half the people here. And a few of the villains, but we don’t talk about that much.”Davey Jacobs's experimental research in superhuman abilities has given way to some of the best superheroes at the agency, but his success rate is far from 100%.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Only this fic and then one more until this series is done! Isn't that weird?  
> Anyway, I've been looking forward to writing Davey's story for a really long time, so enjoy it!
> 
> (I put this as 3 chapters but I have no idea)

Davey’s job was, to say the least, something he had never expected. When he had been a freshman in high school, he had been considering taking as many AP science classes as possible, then getting a biology degree and maybe going into medical research. He supposed that technically, his job could be considered medical research, but it wasn’t necessarily the variation of medical research that you bragged about and asked for grants for at big galas. His medical research was the kind that nerdy seven year old boys dreamed about in their race car beds late at night when they read comic strips by the light of lamps shaped like stars, all while hoping that their moms wouldn’t catch them for being up past their bedtimes. Not that he would know from experience or anything.   
He shouldn’t have been surprised that the people who would change everything would be Jack and Crutchie. The two of them both had tendencies to go into a situation and turn it around. Maybe that was what predisposed them for superhuman abilities. Maybe that was why he had developed crushes on both of them, and why he continued to love being with them every day since.   
That wasn’t an exaggeration. He really did love every moment of being with his boyfriends, both because of and despite how they continually surprised him and kept him on his toes. (Like the times they brought home takeout when he was halfway through cooking dinner, or invited the entire damn superhero agency over for a movie night on a whim, or jumped into action without their partner when fighting one of the worst villains the team had seen in the past three years)  
And he did love his job. Like he’d said, it was everything his little superhero-adoring self from twenty years ago could have dreamed of. Between his degree and hospital experiences and his lab experience in which he modified human DNA through his experimental serums, he couldn’t have been much happier with the way that his life turned out. 

Well, most days, that was.   
Some days, he heard Sarah call out a name, and an order, and brief a superhero on a villain, and his blood would run cold. 

“Minerva!” she would yell or say into her earpiece, broadcasting Katherine’s superhero name over the PA system. “It’s Oliver Marriott, that henchman of Voda’s that you took down the other week. He’s up again, causing trouble on Maiden Lane.” Katherine would sit on Sarah’s desk, listening patiently as she explained the problem, and then would give her girlfriend a quick kiss on the lips and be out of the agency. 

Oliver Marriott, if that wasn’t a familiar name. A nice boy, but a little dumb. Easily convinced to join the agency, easily convinced to join a villain and turn against them. David had been working on photomotion, the ability to move light. Oliver had all but volunteered, and David had worked with him for weeks on how to change the shadows around so that no one would ever see him. Voda had stolen him away just as Davey and Medda were about to ask him to join the team as a full-time hero. 

It was a similar story with Trent Underwood, the boy who didn’t feel pain. David had been experimenting with epidermal elasticity, the ability to stretch, but he’d discovered a way to keep pain from being interpreted by the brain. Trent had been full of himself when he began at the agency, and had wanted to be indestructible. It was lucky that Sarah sent Rogue, Sunspot, and Captain Cannon on the mission to take him down, because only a team that strong could have defeated him, and had he not been defeated, he could have caused serious destruction. 

Still again with Carlton Addams, defeated by Sprint and Helion. Manipulating metal would have been a good power for a hero: a person could have constructed, made art, shelter, homes, and shore up damages. A villain with the same power could destroy, kill, and devastate whole cities. It was extremely unfortunate that Addams had chosen a darker path. He could have been so great. Davey remembered the day that Sprint and Helion defeated Addams well; he had cried for hours at the loss of such a good friend. Jack, Crutchie, and Spot had mourned as well, because Carlton was a student at their high school, and had been a good student and a kind person before Davey asked if he would participate in experiments and he had gotten a big head about the kind of power he could wield, for the first time in his life. 

He regretted every building that was destroyed by someone he’d given powers to, every person hurt by the loss of a dear friend who was taken by one of his experiments gone wrong. He grieved when heroes to whom he’d given powers came back to the agency hurt by people who were once just like him.   
Sure, he’d helped plenty of the people who were saving the city and the world day after day: Sunspot, Sprint, Helion, Nova, Hecate. But he’d also created the reason that the agency needed to recruit and create the four new superheroes when he created a few new supervillains, so how did that balance out?

His boyfriends liked to remind him that it didn’t matter; he’d done what he could do, and he was good at his job, and all of the superheroes had made mistakes that had lost them villains before, so it wasn’t any different. The agency was a team, the three of them were a team, and teams supported each other no matter what. He knew that was all true. Medda and Sarah and all of his friends were always there for him if he needed something. Sometimes however, once Jack and Crutchie were asleep at night and he was the only one awake in their apartment, it was easy to let his mind wander to all the ways he had messed up.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sarah totally says yall all the time

Most days at work, he was too busy to even consider his wrongdoings from the past.   
When he arrived at work with Jack and Crutchie (a few minutes late on a good day, almost an hour late on a bad one), he made his rounds to greet his coworkers and friends, grabbed a second cup of coffee (best if Joey made it, decent if Spot made it, horrible if Katherine had made it), and shut himself in his lab at the back of the agency. After a few hours of working through something alone, Sarah would knock on the door of his space. He always paused what he was doing when she knocked, because he knew that she liked to make sure he didn't wear himself out, and it made her feel like a good sister when she took care of him. Sometimes, she fixed him a sandwich or let him pick at her leftovers from takeout. He certainly wouldn't complain about that.   
He normally hung out with her for a while, as well as whatever heroes showed up to swap memes, jokes, or food. The downtime at the agency rocked, and was made better by how much he genuinely liked his coworkers. Of course, when Jack and Crutchie joined them, it was always the best. Despite living with them, Davey never got tired of seeing them at work as well. 

Often, he liked to listen in as Sarah gave directions on missions. He tried to avoid Jack and Crutchie’s when he could, since thinking about the two of them in danger made him anxious (and he knew how much Jack liked to dramatically act out their missions to Davey once they were home). 

“Davey!” Sarah yelled, knocking on his door in a panic. 

He didn’t bother to pause his music before answering the door. This sounded important, and Sarah already knew that he listened to Britney when he worked. It wasn't embarrassing anymore. “What’s going on?” he poked his head out of the door. 

“I just sent Kath, Jack, and Crutchie out on a mission together, but I’m already coaching Spot, Albert, and Elmer through a mission. Can you take one of those?”

He hated monitoring missions; it was too much control to trust himself with, and he didn’t know how Sarah did it. 

“Can’t Joey or Raf-”

“They’re on standby for helping with the missions in progress, so no. And Medda's out for the weekend.” Sarah pulled at her hair, tightening her ponytail. “Please?”

Davey sighed. “Yeah, let’s get to it. Help me set up, though, because I don’t remember how to work it.”

Sarah waved at Joey, who was wearing her super suit, and she helped Davey get set up with the headset. He smiled at her in thanks, and only thought for a moment about how he had helped her recover and train a few months before, and now here she was, schooling him. 

“Okay, Sunspot, Sprint, Helion?” he asked into the headset.

“Hey Dave!” he heard Elmer’s voice. “What’s up?”

“I’m gonna be coaching your mission this time around, since Sarah’s hung up on Minerva, Cap, and Rogue,” he adjusted his mouthpiece so he could talk into it easier. “I’m not very good at this, so I’m gonna need you guys to be proactive, instead of waiting for me to give directions.”

“I never listen to directions anyway, Davey,” Albert laughed, and Davey watched the dots that symbolized the three of them on his computer screen. They were headed down Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, closing in on the zoo in Prospect Park, where the villain currently was. 

Davey zoomed in on the screen. 

"Okay, here we go, y'all," he heard Sarah say next to him. "Davey's helping the other mission, I'm on you guys." She paused. "No, if he monitored you guys, he'd have a panic attack over it."

"Okay, guys," he breathed. "It looks like you're on the right side to come in to take him by surprise. He's at the entrance of the zoo, so if you go in the back way and the sides, then you should be able to ambush him."

"Cool, we'll split up," Spot instructed. "Sprint, go in the side way from the opposite side, Helion go in the back way, I'll take this way."

Davey nodded and watched as they parted ways. "Don't go to attack until you're all ready, okay?"

"Copy," said Elmer, and he was already in position to strike. Davey assumed he must have been using his invisibility. 

Just as the three of them copied that they were ready, Davey heard a noise from behind him. 

“Alright,” he didn’t turn around, wanting to stay focused, “permission to engage.”

Another banging sound from behind him forced him to swivel in his chair, but he didn’t see anyone there. Onscreen, he was able to tap into a video feed from zoo security, and he watched as Sunspot, Helion, and Sprint engaged in battle with a beastly creature. They seemed to be winning, and then-

“Davey!” he heard Joey yell from behind him. He turned again, just in time to see her and Rafaela’s eyes close, and their bodies fall limply to the ground, tangled in a red rope. 

Sarah turned around too, and stood up right away, pushing her headset off. 

“Who are you?” she asked. 

Davey stood up too, but that was a question he didn't need to ask. “Hi, Grace,” he greeted the villain who towered over his friends. “I didn’t expect to see you again.”

She smiled, and Davey wished he recognized her smile. But where once she had been funny and kind, all he could see now was malice. “I’m surprised you don’t remember me, Sarah,” she hissed. “After all, your brother knows me. But then,” she took a step and was suddenly behind Davey, her chin resting on his shoulder, her lips close to his ear, “your brother always remembers his mistakes, doesn’t he?”

“Old friend,” he said in explanation to Sarah, ignoring the way Grace’s hands were sliding down his chest. “First time I tried super speed on someone.”

“I like your new recruits,” Grace mused, and resumed her position standing over Hecate and Nova. “Although they didn’t put up much of a fight. Nothing compared to what Oliver, Trent, and I could have done.”

“You shut up.” Davey straightened his back. “You don’t get to talk about the agency that way.”

“Don’t I?” she took a slow step towards Davey. “Who’s going to stop me? Last I checked, all your heroes were either out of the office or out cold. And I was part of it too, you know. It’s as much my agency as it is yours.”

“It is not,” Davey felt his throat burn at the idea. “You chose to abandon this agency because you were bitter. I’m sticking with my friends, no matter what.”

He glanced at Sarah, who was staring at him like he had grown two heads. When he looked back, he was face to face with Grace. 

“Admirable, Davey Jacobs.” Her breath steamed in his face. “But you made me like this. You gave me powers, and then you abandoned me - your friend - because you couldn’t let go of your outdated ideals.”

He didn’t know what to say. So he brought his arm up, swung it as hard as he could, and watched as she crumpled to the ground. Her bleach-blonde hair fell around her face on the ground, her all-black, skin-tight pantsuit shining in the lights of the agency. He inhaled sharply in disbelief that his instincts had told him to just hit her, and that it had worked. He would have thought that her super speed would have let her stop any attack he tried. 

Sarah rushed to grab Joey and Rafaela, and Davey joined her. 

“Hey, Raf,” he murmured as they woke up and Sarah stood up, went to her desk, and pulled her headset back on. “Sorry about that.”

Sarah spoke loudly into the microphone on both her headset and Davey’s. “I need a confirmation from all heroes immediately.” She waited a moment, counting on her fingers until she got to six. “Good, okay. We’ve had an attack on the agency, but everyone here is safe. Minerva and Sunspot, I need mission updates from both of you.”

Davey sat, with his arm around Joey, who sniffled, and watched his sister being brave. She nodded, like everything that she heard from Katherine and Spot was positive. He wished - he wanted to be able to recover like she could. 

“I saw her, and then I didn’t see her,” Sarah turned around and stared at him. “She disappeared. And then she was on the ground.”

Davey opened his mouth and realized how dry it was. “She must be able to affect the speed at which other people see her,” he said, but he wasn’t really invested in analyzing her powers. “If she slows it down enough on a specific person, then she’s invisible to them but not to others. Impressive.”

He stood up, and Sarah reached out to take his hand. “All our heroes are coming back to the agency. They’ll be here soon.”

He nodded. After this, it would be good to see his boyfriends again. Tell them his decision. “Sarah,” he licked his lip. “I think I need to make a change in my work environment.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed! I'm actually proud of this chapter lol


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If I don't add another chapter to this fic, then there's only one more fic to go until this series is over! Isn't that weird??

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE exercise responsibly. Davey's habits in this would seriously hurt a person who wasn't superhuman (if you're superhuman, go for it, I guess). 
> 
> Also kudos to anyone who spots my direct reference to _Please Forget to Fall Down_. How I never noticed that Spot has fire powers in both this fic and that fic is beyond me.

He'd always admired the heroes of his agency. They were strong, trained hard, and did their best to never let their partners, coworkers, and standards down. Davey knew it couldn't be easy, but he had to wonder if he'd ever truly appreciated the plight of heroes until he began training to become one as well. 

-

It started when he decided that he may as well go all in. After discussing thoroughly with Jack, Crutchie, and Medda, he spent days that blurred into nights that blurred into a week in his lab in the back of the agency. He ate intermittently, when someone brought him food. He slept like that too: whenever someone came in and dragged him away from formulas and chemical equations. As days went on, he noticed that his boyfriends and sister had come up with some kind of schedule as to who would take care of him and when, but he did his best to not ask about it. Not only did he not want to lose his focus on the task at hand, but he knew that if they felt like they were being sneaky about it, they would feel better about helping him. It was the little things like that that made them happy when he got like this.   
Davey emerged from his stupor, victorious but exhausted, eight days after the attack on the agency by Grace (who he’d since learned was called Greyhound).   
The first thing he did after cleaning up was grab onto Jack’s shoulders, celebrate that he finished, and then allow the inevitable to happen as Jack grabbed him, picked him up bridal style, and dragged him to the employee break room, where he was thrown down on the couch. Almost immediately, Davey fell asleep.   
When he woke up, the whole room was barren. Rubbing his eyes and standing up, he made his way to the door. When he opened it and looked out into the hallway, Crutchie was standing guard, his arms crossed possessively. 

“Hi, love,” Davey grumbled, suddenly aware of how scratchy his voice was, and how embarrassing it was to have fallen asleep at work. Not that it was the first time or the last time. “Keeping people out so I could sleep?”

Crutchie smiled. “Yeah, figured it was for the best. Jack was here, but then he-”

“Got bored?”

Crutchie nodded, rolling his eyes and Davey laughed, kissing Crutchie softly.

“Figures. Thank you, though, I needed a nap.”

“Yeah, we knew,” Crutchie kissed him back. “Most people have gone home now, I think it’s just me, Jack, Sarah, and Kath.”

Well, at least he didn’t have to worry about his appearance. All those people had seen him in far worse positions than this slightly sleepy state. 

-

The plasma was green when he finished it. Pale green, like waves lapping at the shore. He fed it into the syringe, which he held in his hand like it was a treasure. He supposed it was, although not any more precious than the other plasmas he’d created for other superheroes. _That was all this was_. One of many plasmas he’d made, one of many he’d given. The fact that he was administering it to himself made no difference.   
Or rather, that Sarah was administering it to him after he’d spent almost twenty minutes pondering it and nearly chickened out. The reality that it was him in the chair this time ended up making a very, very big difference.  
At first, it felt like any other shot he’d ever gotten. But then, it was so much worse; it tore at his veins, all fire and ice. He hit his head on the chair when his knees buckled underneath him. 

“Jesus,” he clenched his teeth when the pain faded. “How did the heroes deal with that?”

Sarah laughed. “Usually, the same way you just did. You just hadn’t noticed ‘til now.”

“I guess you’re right,” he managed to stand up, despite his legs wobbling below him. He hadn’t realized how much that actually hurt. Maybe in the future it would be a good idea to a mild anaesthetic to it, or do something beforehand to lessen the pain. On the other hand, it could be a good idea to keep the pain in preparation for the long road ahead of the heroes - and now him - as they got ready to fight crime. 

-

Jack and Crutchie were planning on helping him train, but after the first session, in which they got too distracted with each other, they figured it might be better to let someone else do it. So Katherine took over his athletic training, and she pushed him hard. Squats, pull-ups, curls, lunges, and bench presses, all with weights heavier than anything he’d ever done before. The plasma had been designed so that he would be a little stronger: enough to let him do all of this, but not enough so that he’d be ready to go out and fight quite yet. That much, he had to work for.   
Katherine definitely ensured that he put in the effort. They exercised once in the morning and once at night, which was almost too much for Davey to bear, but the plasma made sure he didn’t break. After about a week and a half, though, he started to see real muscle mass on his body (the plasma helped it stay on, too - not to toot his own horn or anything, but he was good at what he did). It was nice, to say the least, that after working with people who were superhuman and living with two boyfriends who were superhuman and unfairly good looking and fit, he finally felt like his body could keep up with them. Not that he’d ever been ashamed, but now he certainly had a reason to be proud. 

-

On top of continuing research in his normal position and training with Katherine, he also had to train with Spot, Joey, and Rafaela to learn to make his new powers work in the way he wanted. They weren’t the exact same as their powers, but it was as good as Davey was going to get without talking to some of the villains. And he most definitely wasn’t planning on doing that. 

“Alright, watch how I do it,” Spot said, and effortlessly created a flame in his hand. “It’s fire, but it’s not from around you. It’s from inside of you. It’s anger, it’s love for your significant other,” (and if Davey noticed Joey and Rafaela blush in synchronization then, he didn’t bring it up) “it’s shame, or guilt, or sadness. It’s whatever you feel that day, from inside of you, that generates the fire.”

Joey nodded vigorously. “That’s how I do it. Usually when I’m fighting, I channel fear, and that usually works pretty well.”

Spot’s face when Joey talked reminded Davey of a proud father. Not that Davey would ever say that aloud; he didn’t know who would shoot fire at him faster, Spot or Joey. 

So,” Spot let the flame die, “think of that. Think of an intense feeling, and go with that. It’ll be different with your powers, since you won’t be controlling anything from inside of you.”

Rafaela stepped forward. “When you’re controlling things that are external,” she said, and used her mind to lift up one of the chairs in the opposite corner of the training room, “you need to focus on it, and its destination. I’ve found that you can do that same thing Spot does, where you use your emotions, but your emotions are going to be the fuel to get the object to move.”

Joey nodded again. 

“And from what I understand of your power, Davey, you’re going to need to be able to look at objects and know what they’re made of in order to move them,” Spot stepped closer. “Can you give that a try?”

Davey had already thought about the intricacies of his power. “Yeah, okay.” He grabbed his water bottle from his bag and twisted the lid off, setting it on the concrete floor. He knew what this was made of, and had for a long time. If he couldn’t do this, he wasn’t sure he could do much of anything. Davey focused his energy in on the hydrogen and oxygen in the water, concentrated on the structure of the molecules, and thought about his elation towards being a hero at last. 

Then, he watched with his coworkers as the water lifted out of its container and twisted into a rope. He breathed a sigh of relief and let it fall.

“There,” he smiled. “Now I just have to get stronger at that.”

“I’m sure you’re gonna do great,” Joey clapped him on the shoulder. “If anyone can do it, it’s you.”

He was sure he’d need that reassurance in the weeks to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright there's that! I could add another chapter if y'all want, it'd probably just be a simple fight scene and be mostly Davey showing off his powers. Let me know what you think.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, you guys said you wanted another chapter. Fair warning, it's a cliff hanger, but I'm setting it up for the next fic, which is the big finale, the first chapter of which you can expect about mid-September.

Alarms blared in his ears, ringing and pushing inwards on his head. That was arguably one of the worst things about field-work instead of lab-work: now, Davey had to run directly into the noise and danger, instead of following his instincts and fleeing. There was something about it, though, that he enjoyed. The rush of blood through his veins as he ran alongside Jack, and underneath Crutchie, who never flew too far ahead of the two of them unless necessary. The three of them barreled through the subway station, charging upstream towards the agency base, which was the source of the alarms.

“Rogue?” he yelled over the sound. “What’s going on ahead of us?”

His boyfriend’s face twisted in determination, and Davey knew he was using his well-trained abilities to hear and see beyond the walls and people between them and the base. 

“Three people, they seem to be pretty normal - not superhuman. They’re in the base, both the main workspace and the lab area.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah,” Crutchie yelled from above them. “How could they have found the base?”

Davey shook his head. All of them had been so careful. They’d been sure to blend in with the other commuters every time that they came to work - every hero had. Davey had been working at the agency for nearly a decade, and in that time, no one had ever found the base before. He’d been beginning to think it would never happen. Maybe he’d gotten too cocky, because someone, at some point in the recent past, had obviously slipped up. Not that he wanted to place blame on any one person, but that could be considered a serious breach of security. 

Lights flashed through the station as they neared the base. The area around it was empty, and the door was closed, which told Davey the alarms had sounded and the sirens went off, but no one besides villains had actually seen the entrance to the base. At least that was good; they might not have to move the base after all this was said and done, if they could capture the people who broke in. 

Crutchie landed ahead of them, hoping to give the three of them access to the base. When he landed, however, he turned around to look at them as they came closer. 

“The sign-in’s been destroyed,” he shook his head. “Totally fried. I’ll have to break in.”

Davey nodded. If someone had done that, then they were likely a real threat. The three of them needed entry as fast as possible: someone else could fix the sign-in later.   
Crutchie moved backwards, then flew at the entrance, his hands in front of him to take the impact. He broke through the entrance easily, bringing brick crumbling around him. The three of them looked into the elevator that usually awaited them, and Davey heard Jack gasp when he looked down. The floor of the elevator had been blown away, leaving a vertical tunnel that they looked through. 

“They probably couldn't figure out how to get clearance to work the elevator,” Davey muttered, and Jack hummed in agreement. 

“Well then,” Crutchie nodded. “I’ll go down first and help you guys down.”

And that was what he did, stepping off the side of the ground and floating down to the agency like it was a walk in the park. 

Jack stepped off next, his eyes closed but his body perfectly trusting of Crutchie, who caught him easily and set him down. Davey tried to follow Jack’s lead, but he would have lied if he said that he hadn’t been at least a little terrified. Crutchie caught him, because of course he did, and his attention was quickly diverted from his fear of falling to his fear of what-the-hell-happened in his agency. 

Things were everywhere: papers scattered, glass broken, file cabinets pushed over. Sarah’s high-tech computer was on the ground, the monitor smashed. 

“What the fuck?” Jack breathed, scanning the room with his hyperfocus. 

Davey was about to answer when he heard a crash from his lab. The three of them took off instantly, silently catapulting over the destroyed desks.   
The sight at the lab wasn’t pretty. The glass windows, which were six inches thick, were smashed on the ground. Inside, a man stood over Davey’s mixing table, reading the labels on different tubes of plasma aloud. 

“Strength,” he said, and nodded, shoving that vial in his bag. “Flight. Fire. Ah, chaos magic.” As he spoke, he continued pocketing each of them. 

“Get away from there,” Davey tried to keep his voice level. 

“Or what?” the man asked, sneering. “What’ll you do, Chem? You’re not the one with the chemicals now, I am.”

Davey smiled in spite of himself. “True. But-” he focused in on the chemicals that were in the plasma that influenced strength “-I can get them back.” The bottle of plasma flew at him, and he caught it with one hand. 

“Not all of them.” 

The man threw the bag through the open window, and time began to move through honey. Davey watched the bag fall, and just before it could hit the ground, he heard the sound of a gunshot ring off the concrete walls of the agency. A person, a thin woman in all black, ran to catch the bag of plasmas, and before Davey could register her face, she and the bag were gone. He looked up to see where the bullet had gone, and saw the man’s jaw drop as he came to the realization that blood was pouring out of his hip. Davey hoped that meant this was over, but the man’s shock turned to malice, and he all but threw himself at the remaining bottles of plasma on the countertop.   
Davey gasped as all the bottles fell to the floor and shattered, spilling and ruining years of hard work, the secret to his agency’s success, and thousands of dollars of research on the concrete.   
The man’s body crumpled, and Crutchie rushed to him. 

“I’ll get him to the hospital. Rogue, assess the damage in the agency. Dr. Chem,” he looked up, his voice clear, “check to see if anyone else is here, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Davey nodded absently, and began to walk around the agency mindlessly. He wondered where the lady with the bag had gone, but if all his experience told him anything, it was that she was long gone by now. She had likely heard the shot and fled. If only he could have done the same thing. 

-

Davey, Jack, Crutchie, and probably every superhero at the agency hated losing fights more than anything. This one, that decimated their workspace, called every worker to the base at one in the morning, and left all of them defenseless and hopeless, stung especially painfully. Eleven of them stood in the room: Medda, Katherine, Sarah, Spot, Elmer, Albert, Jack, Joey, Crutchie, Rafaela, and Davey. All they could do was look at each other silently, an unspoken agreement that although they didn’t know how to react in the moment, they all knew that this would have a big impact. This meant that big things were coming, and they would have to get ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for that. Also note: they took him to the hospital because it's agency policy that if they can keep anyone, even a villain, from dying unnecessarily, they have to try. Technically, Jack firing his gun was probably against agency policy, since it was pre-discussion with the villain, but he hates seeing Davey's work threatened.
> 
> Thanks for reading!!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! If you liked it, please let me know with a comment or kudo, it would make my day!  
> And come say hi on tumblr @javidblue or @allbesolucky


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